The Freeport 7 Investigation
Beginnings Following the Destruction of Freeport 7 and the loss of over 2,600 people, Liberty President Jacobi ordered a special unit of the Liberty Military to conduct this investigation given rumors that The Order was behind the attack. Their initial scope was to secure the wreckage of Freeport 7, gather evidence, and coordinate with the forensic teams to recover and identify human remains. Furthermore, the LSF put the Freeport 7 Survivors under surveillance. Investigation in Sigma-17 President Jacobi's decision to move military forces into Sigma-17 to conduct the investigation into the destruction of Freeport 7 raised questions from many people since the Border Worlds were an apolitical and neutral zone. Some people objected, saying the investigation should be a pan-colonial undertaking. President Jacobi sought to assuage these fears insisting that the potential involvement of The Order demanded immediate action and that the military was only there to prevent further contamination of the area and investigate what happened. She stressed that the Liberty presence in Sigma-17 would be temporary and that the findings would be shared with all affected government agencies. One of the key missing factors in determining who was on board the station at the time of its destruction was the station's manifest. The investigators searching the Freeport 7 wreckage sought to find this because it would also tell them what ships were docked and even how the station might have been destroyed. Questioning the Survivors Although the LSF initially wanted to wait to question the survivors until they recovered from their injuries, they quickly changed their stance and sought to questioning them immediately to ascertain information about the attack. This change in stance likely came about from pressure, possibly from within the Liberty government to find answers quickly. The Medical Commissioner at the Williams-Creek Medical Center refused their request. The LSF reached a compromise in which the survivors would be kept in Ward 13 and would question them once the doctors deemed them fit for debriefing. Shortly thereafter, the doctors acquiesced after the government pressured them, and some of the survivors were even taken to LSF headquarters for interrogation. It is possible that this change of heart came about due to pressure from the LSF (which, following the destruction of the RNC Donau, was assigned tracking down The Order as its highest priority). When not being questioned, the LSF maintained surveillance on all of the survivors at the Williams-Creek Medical Center. As the questioning progressed, the LSF stated that between that information and materials retreived from Sigma-17, there was enough evidence to support claims that The Order participated in the attack, though without any knowledge of why, or even how, the attack was carried out. Following this, the investigation narrowed to simply determining that The Order had an "operative presence" on the station prior to its destruction, being completely confident that at least one Order member was on board several hours before it was destroyed. Meanwhile, doctors at the Williams-Creek Medical Center began to report several deaths from among the survivors due to their extensive injuries (despite the fact that on arrival, only one of the survivors was critically injured). A nurse who worked in Ward 13 reported that oneo f her patients was in perfectly good health and was scheduled for release, but the next day she was told he had suddenly died that night, without cause of death or explanation beyond "general trauma." The body was removed and his medical records confiscated by the LSF before anyone had the chance to verify these reports. There is no hard evidence whether these survivors really were killed, or if they were simply taken away to a secret facility. One of the survivors, Sam Lonnigan, escaped from Ward 13 to warn Edison Trent and flee the planet, but he was recaptured shortly after contacting Trent. The Results The first analysis of the Freeport 7 data revealed that the station's defensive weapons did not fire a single shot at the attackers, meaning either the radar didn't pick them up, or someone on the inside disabled the defense systems. Furthermore, one of the survivors reportedly had a lot of alien Artifacts on him with millions of credits, arousing suspicion. The LSF decided that this person was somehow linked to The Order. Although unable to determine why The Order might want to attack Freeport 7, and unable to determine what weapons were used, the LSF was confident that at least one Order member was on board Freeport 7 hours before it was destroyed, and decided they merely needed to establish an "operative presence" on board the station prior to its destruction. After running engine-signature tests (standard procedure for an investigatino like this) they discovered that the particle signatures were of a type not on record, indicating that the attack on the station was no ordinary attack. One of the survivors questioned, Sam Lonnigan, said that the station was attacked by some strange-looking ships unlike anything he'd ever seen before. Later on, people began to look for Edison Trent, who supposedly knew who destroyed the station. Rumors also surfaced that some of the Rheinland Alien Artifacts (the ones that were still active) were being stored on Freeport 7, and that was why the station was destroyed. Hunting Down the Survivors Around the time that Rheinlanders attacked Willard Research Station, the LSF and Liberty Navy undertook a serious effort to track down and capture the Freeport 7 survivors. This included trying to recapture Sam Lonnigan (who refused to surrender and died in the ensuing firefight) and killing Brandon Rowlett shortly after he made contact with Edison Trent. Category:History